Window Shopping 10

It was the height of summer in the city. Outside his shop, throngs of people walked past his store, in their shorts, dresses, and tank tops. If they stopped, it was to gawk at the animatronics in his windows, or, as had become popular lately, to take selfies in front of them. Some actually entered the store, and fewer still bought anything. It didn't matter much to Brandon. It's not like he needed the income.

Since patenting his groundbreaking nanotechnology, Brandon didn't need to work at all. He was something of an oddity in the scientific / tech community, the brilliant engineer who owned and operated a store that had nothing to do with his inventions. Even after moving to this more prestigious location, in the dead center of one of the most famous shopping thoroughfares in the country, his choice of "day job" still raised eyebrows.

"I just like to interact with the public," he had answered when was queried on the subject in an interview last year, with that prestigious business website.

"Us eggheads can easily find ourselves trapped in our ivory towers, you know? This is what keeps me grounded, in touch with my roots. My mother ran a shop just like mine, catering to women. She was a minor celebrity in our town, that's how popular her little store was. I still have fond memories of hanging out there as a kid, just listening to her gossip with her customers, especially on the weekends."

What he said was partly true: he did genuinely enjoy making small talk with his customers, the fact that he didn't need their business allowing him to interact with them in a more relaxed manner. Sports, video games, movies, television shows - whatever his customers wanted to bullshit about, he was game. All of it was a relief from studying the particulars of microscopic robotics.

But that wasn't the real reason he paid the exorbitant rent every month, to that multinational real estate company. No, the actual goal was for as many people as possible to see, stare, grope, and take pictures with those four automatons in his ten-foot-tall glass windows as possible. In that sense, business was booming.

It had all started when that influencer happened across his storefront one day. Specializing in theme parks, she had been struck by their quality, comparing them in her thirty-second video to something you would find from one of the "big boys" down south.

"Oh, they're just something I cooked up in my spare time, back at my home workshop," he had admitted with faux humility in the follow-up video the influencer made after his original piece went viral. "I love to tinker, you know, just to unwind after a long day of research!"

He had hoped that moving to his new spot would increase his foot traffic, but the clips, along with the countless videos and pictures taken since, had magnified the attention he had sought well beyond his wildest dreams. Some local residents had even started to complain about the congestion he was generating.

"You should change their outfits every season!" one comment read, under the first video that blew up (the avatar of the user in question had been a picture of Jessica Rabbit, he remembered).

Well, he did that anonymous writer one better: he now altered their get-ups every week!

Before, he had only bothered to make any changes to their clothing during the holiday season, and otherwise they would only wear the same generic "cute" outfits during the rest of the year, only swapped when Brandon arbitrarily tired of them.

That had all changed with the suggestion of that brilliant commentator. Now, frequent visitors would be rewarded with an ever-rotating schedule of coverings: sleek grey sweaters in the winter, pink and yellow dresses in spring, brightly-colored bikinis in summer, and elegant, knee-length beige coats in autumn. This was all in addition to holiday-specific themes as well. Stop by the shop this Labor Day weekend to see the girls in work overalls! Or, if you enjoy Spooky Season, make sure to drop by every week in October to see what new costume your favorite gal is sporting!

The effort has paid off dividends. Every Sunday, the day of the changeover, crowds of people would form on the sidewalk, eager to see what new outfits Brandon had adorned his creations in overnight. Presently, he was running an unsolicited tie-in to the upcoming Barbie movie, set to be released in theatres this upcoming weekend. Accordingly, his mannequins each looked like life-sized versions of the famous dolls. They weren't particularly modeled after any specific iteration, but they had on the uniform, so to speak: pink crop tops, pink short shorts, and lots and lots of make-up.

Brandon laughed as one bold teenage boy went up to the display, found Amelia, and grabbed her colossal breasts over the thin fabric of her t-shirt, to the cheers of his buddies outside. He stuck his tongue out as he ran his fingers over her puffy nipples.

It wasn't stated anywhere explicitly, but everyone knew: you could do whatever you wanted to the animatronics. Word had spread of his permissiveness, through electronic and conventional means alike.

Hey, that millionaire nerd, man, he was all right. That's what he imagined "them" saying, at least.

And they took full advantage. Men squeezed their tits, fondled their asses, and, if they had the courage, were even known to shove their hands down their pants too, from time to time. And not just the men either. It was not uncommon for a wife or girlfriend to partake too, maybe just to elicit a cheap laugh themselves. Why not? It wasn't like they were alive or anything, right? Who cared if you molested an inanimate object?

"Hey, how much to take the black one into the back?" a slovenly man had asked him about six months ago. Brandon could guess that he had discovered how realistic her genitals were. He wasn't the first, or the last, to make that proposition when they had, nor was he the most unkempt of those chosen few.

Brandon had politely declined the offer. Maybe, at some point, he would be willing to rent them out in such a way, but for the time being, he was too jealous to let anybody else get to know them so intimately. Molestation was one thing, but sex was quite another.

The teenager reached down and spanked Amelia, her big ass barely covered by the bright pink shorts Brandon had adorned her in a few days ago. Then, he ran back out of the store and re-joined his friends, greeted by their congratulatory high-fives and back-slaps.

Brandon didn't blame him for not doing any shopping. His shop was aimed squarely at women, filled as it was with designer clothing, costume jewelry, and various other accessories. This was for strictly practical purposes: women shopped more than men. All that mattered for him was that he got visitors, and catering to a female clientele was more conducive to those ends. But if everything changed tomorrow, and men became the primary spenders, he'd have no qualms over exchanging his entire girly inventory for something with a more masculine flavor. Like whiskey or cigars. Whatever, he didn't really know. He was just a tech geek at the end of the day.

For whatever reason, no one seemed in the mood to talk to him that day, so he took the opportunity to admire his creations. Amelia, no longer encumbered by teenage horniness, had returned to her usual routine, swiveling on her heels with her hand up to her open mouth, as if she had just been scandalized by something she had witnessed on the street.

Next to her was the younger-looking Luna, who was perpetually bending over to present her round hindquarters to the leers of the public. Simultaneously, she turned her neck and head to look back at her own rear, a mischievous Cheshire cat grin plastered across her beautiful face.

On the other side of the door lay the other display. Here were the "black one" Tamika, and his latest addition, Kelsea. Their existences were spent leaning forward and kissing one another, their eyes shut and mouths puckered. The public loved putting themselves between the lovers, and taking a selfie the second their cold lips touched either one of their cheeks.

If one were to inspect the animatronics more closely, though Brandon couldn't imagine why they would, one might find something curious: that they were not plugged into the wall - into any wall. No wires or cables ran in and out of them at all, actually. They must run on batteries then, you may reason, as unlikely as that seemed. But you wouldn't find any compartment to house said batteries, no matter how hard you tried.

With this, an idea might begin to take hold deep in the recesses of your mind. A realization, a dawning horror. No, it was impossible, the stuff of science fiction. But the proprietor was a technological genius...could it be, that these robots were not robots at all? Or, at least, weren't always as...mechanical in nature as they were now?

The answer was, of course, yes. Cue the screams. Don't worry, you're not alone. They're screaming too. They never stop.

Amelia, his former stepmother, had liked to openly disparage his interests and hobbies to his sucker of a father, even when Brandon was right in front of them both.

"Video games? Isn't he a little too old for that?" she had asked one night at dinner, as if he weren't sitting there at the kitchen table with them.

"What, is he not interested in girls or something?" she continued. "Is he some kind of fag? I know we're not supposed to say that, but, you know, what the fuck, right?"

Luna, her daughter, had cruelly laughed at her mother's careless remarks. But she, unlike Amelia, had taken a more subtle approach to humiliating Brandon. When she and her mother first moved in, Luna had feigned interest in him, spending much of that summer hanging out with him. At the time, he would have considered it to be among the happiest periods of his life. Never had he known the joy of female company before, and to experience so much of it all at once had been intoxicating.

Together, they had swum in the local lake, rode their bikes, gone shopping at the mall, and, more than anything else, talked. They spoke at length about their hopes, beliefs, and dreams, in long rambling, conversations that seemed at once endless and abrupt. The only thing they didn't do was kiss or even hold hands, as much as Brandon wanted to. He just could never work up the courage to make the first move, however, and Luna never took the initiative either.

Its fine

, he had told himself.

We have all the time in the world to let our relationship grow!

But then, as soon as school started in September, she abandoned him completely. When they passed each other in the halls, she wouldn't even acknowledge his existence. They even had a few classes together, but the way she ignored him, you never would have guessed they were step-siblings.

By Christmas, she had fucked most of his friends, his enemies, and a few of the male teachers. And where had she bedded them? Right in her room, directly adjacent to his own. If their parents weren't home, she wouldn't even bother to shut the door. Not that it really mattered: he could hear her moans just as well through the thin walls.

"Bro, I swear, she told me you weren't home!" one of his friends had protested at school the next day. "And she had told me to be as loud as possible! She said it turned her on!"

That's when Brandon understood that his stepsister's sexual escapades were part of some bizarre humiliation ritual, directed at him. For seemingly no reason at all, it must be empathized. The only explanation he could muster was that she was punishing him for not being bolder back over the break, but, really, what sense did that make?

All said, it didn't feel like it could get any weirder. His life had become like a bad, albeit bizarre, dream, the type that you're grateful will start to fade from your addled mind the second you wake up.

And then, somehow, things got even stranger.

The escalation started when he went into his room to find a condom on his bed. A used condom, still filled with some spunk in it. He quickly discarded it, but they just kept on coming. Small, medium, large, and even larger rubbers heavy with semen kept appearing in his room. He could only guess which of Luna's lovers they were from.

He didn't have to imagine for long, though, as after a few months of this, the condoms were soon accompanied by photos, presumably of the sources of their "filling."

His best friend. His other best friends. His bully. His other bully. His bully's bully. That kid in his physics class. His physics teacher. His math teacher. His neighbor. His neighbor's son. His neighbor's son's best friend. His neighbor's son's best friend's math teacher. His cousin.

His Dad.

Part of him knew it was coming, but he still wanted to throw up when he saw his father's visage next to the leaking silicone pouch. Just to eliminate any ambiguity, Luna didn't use the usual source for the picture, either. The trend had been for her to print out the subject's Facebook or Instagram profile pic. But for his Dad, she did something special: the photo had been taken by her, a selfie of the two of them in bed, the state of their hair indicating this was post-coitus.

Well, he had her now, Brandon thought. He took the print and the condom to Amelia, proof of her new husband's indiscretion - with his own stepdaughter! He found her in the kitchen, getting dinner ready, and held up the damning evidence, any further commentary unnecessary.

Amelia's only reaction was to let out a short, mocking spasm of laughter, that caused her colossal, freckled breasts to jiggle, in tandem with the many bracelets that rested on either of her wrists.

"What, you think I don't know?" she asked. "The fuck do I care? Don't you realize how bad our situation was, before your Dad? I was already selling my ass to make rent, and I doubt it wasn't going to be long before Luna was, too. I'd be willing to let him fuck my mother too, if she were still alive, God rest her soul!"

"But don't think you're going to get any from me, mister! Maybe if you weren't such a loser, I wouldn't mind letting you fuck me every now and then. You young guys usually can go multiple times in a fuckin' row! But, newsflash, Buster, you are a goddamn loser! Christ, guess the stud genes skipped a generation in your case, huh?"

Damn, if Amelia wasn't totally outraged, he had hoped some revenge sex might be in the offering. Her ass and tits were looking so big in her tight, leopard-print dress, too...

To Brandon's chagrin, there were no other cards to play. He could try to rat on the teachers who had indulged, but that ran the risk of derailing his Senior year of High School, and who could say what knock-on effects that might have on his college admission? And going to the cops was out of the question, because he was certain that Luna hadn't started screwing his Dad or his neighbor until she turned eighteen (not that he thought she had waited very long).

Pandora's Box had been opened, and all he could do was try to get through it. Not a week went by that he wouldn't get a selfie sent to his phone of Luna getting fucked by his Dad. Missionary, cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, doggy style - and a few other positions he didn't even know the names of.

It got to the point where he spent as little time at home as possible. Then, first chance he got, he was off to college to study engineering, the first one to move into his dorm building. His Dad was basically in a 24/7 pussy coma by that point, so he doubted he even noticed he was gone. But the tuition checks still cleared, which was all that mattered.

Tamika - what was there to say about her? An ex-girlfriend, she had dumped him in the summer of 2020, when she had accused him of not sufficiently believing that Black Lives Matter. He didn't post the Square, but it wasn't out of any political conviction, or lack thereof - he had simply never set up an Instagram account to begin with. Social media had never been something he had participated in, especially once his research took off. But that too became proof of his racism, at least in the eyes of Tamika. Emotions were running hot that year, to say the least, between the pandemic and the riots.

Kelsea was the last one to break his heart, even if, admittedly, they had never actually been boyfriend and girlfriend. The friend zone, like so many before him, was to be his fate. And after all he had done to help her get through BioChem, those late-night study sessions that had almost driven him to put his head through a wall, such was her inability to grasp the material!

He had bagged the four of them in the same way, by spiking their drinks with his nanobots. Liquid had no effect on their functioning - they could operate underwater, underground, and even in the vacuum of space!

Luna and Amelia had been served up to him on a platter, by his Dad himself no less.

"The bitch is going to take everything," he had cried to him over the phone, near the end of his senior year of college. There had been no junior year for him. It was not intentional; his thirst for knowledge had just compelled him to take as many classes as he could fit into his schedule. He had been pleasantly surprised to learn that he had accrued enough credits to skip two semesters,

"I think this was the plan all along...they never loved me...they just wanted the money...the whispering, the giggling...they took me for a fool!"

Well, if the shoe fits

, he thought, but didn't say. Despite everything that had happened, he couldn't bring himself to twist the knife into his Dad like that. He could still remember the times immediately after his mom passed away, and the thought of bringing his Dad to that state again was too much, even for him.

But Brandon was now 21, and it was obvious to all that he was on the cusp of becoming the Zoomer Zuckerberg, if he chose to go that route. Or he could simply patent his inventions, then sit back and let the money roll in from the private sector, while he was free to do whatever he wanted. He was still deciding.

The old man didn't realize that, apparently. He seemed to be under the impression that he already had millions lying around, ready to bail his dumbass out after sticking his dick in crazy. The only things on hand were thousands of self-replicating micro machines. He supposed he could make do with them.

Hey, so I just read How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibrahim X. Kendi, and I really want to pick your brain about it. I need some help specifically with the concept of "black bodies. Can you swing by my dorm tonight, and we can discuss?

That was the text he had shot Tamika. It wasn't as much of a longshot as it may have seemed: everyone at the school had heard by now of the brilliant scientist that Brandon was proving himself to be, and Tamika might see in him a potential (very powerful) ally.

At the scheduled time, he heard a knock on his door. He opened it to find Tamika standing there. She had undergone some physical changes since their break-up: she now sported a septum piercing, along with a few new tattoos along her arms. She had also put on some weight, especially in her ass. It had always been pretty fucking big, but it stuck out further than ever before, straining the fabric on her black shorts to their absolute limit.

Brandon flashed a friendly smile at her, but it was not reciprocated. Bitch couldn't even bring herself to pretend she had anything less than contempt for him.

"Come in," he said, making space for Tamika to enter his solo dorm. She briskly walked past him, her exposed belly jiggling with each step. Brandon noted how she didn't even say "Hello."

She stood in the stood in the middle of the room, her arms crossed, the long, red-colored nails of her right hand tapping against her chubby left bicep.